Speaking of PDFs, when I first asked you why you didn’t like OS X, that was the reason you stated. IMO, that single event holds far too much weight in your overall opinion of the OS.

Just to reiterate, if you’re on a single user OS X system, locking the screen works fine (in fact, you can add a shortcut to the menu bar to engage it). If you have more than one user, you should have fast user switching enabled anyway, so just use that. If you’re absolutely committed to not enabling fast user switching, there is a way to set up who specifically can unlock the screen.

And Microsoft has to be on top of fixing the security problems because so many of them are found, and a more-than-insignificant percentage of them are in the wild and being actively exploited. There are flaws in OS X just as there are in Windows, but they all seem to be found and fixed before they run rampant. I’m betting that if there was something as bad as the WMF exploit on OS X being actively exploited in the wild, Apple would be just as fast to fix it as Microsoft (and ironically, I tried seeing if my machine was vulnerable and it wasn’t because Quicktime took over for WMF files. Doesn’t contribute to my argument any, but still ironic ).

But anyway, that’s all for now. See you back at RIT!

And as Justin explained more detailed than me… you were doing it wrong.

Justin -
A. You are absolutely right about the root account. Because OSX is built on Unix, it subscribes to the principal that system wide access and changes can be done through the root account. However, I’m making the point that a user who unlocks someone elses’ account now has access far beyond whatever they might be able to do on the computer itself. They now have access to personal files, email, and any websites which they might be storing in their browser.

B. To address the issue of Apple’s lax patch management and response, simply poking around google will back me up. I remember reading an article in PCWorld about this very issue. They argue that, although there are more hackers focusing on Windows, it is the most secure operating system, for the simple fact that Microsoft is so on top of responding to security issues.

Todd-
A. Ok, let’s get something clear here. The PDF issue was not the first issue that I had, it was just one of the more vivid issues that I had had with my mac. Part of that situation was because I was dumb enough to think that Apple’s multi-purpose document viewer would handle a PDF the same way that Adobe’s app would have. I should have downloaded and used Adobe’s app in the first place. My issue was NOT with Adobe Reader, but rather Apple’s “Preview” app.

B. To address you claim of “I was doing it wrong…” first off, I’m an Information Security and Forensics major, so I hope that I’m doing it right! However, all kidding aside, I know full-well what I’m doing. The accounts have been configured correctly – two administrator accounts. I then configured the screensaver to require a password on return. Either administrator is able to unlock the session of any user, giving them full access to that session.

I’m actually surprised – how many times did you send your MacBook Pro back because Apple didn’t take care of it? It has scratches, dirt, and all kinds of stuff on it.

My rant is not looking for “more absurd” reasons. These are all valid arguments which can easily be proven. They don’t stem from a stupid issue because Apple’s app doesn’t perform to Adobe’s PDF standard!

In this case… “You’re doing it wrong” comes to mind. As Justin mentioned above… Perhaps you’re not locking the computer properly. But actually… beyond that… perhaps you’re not setting up computer account correctly. And one can only hope that if you’re working somewhere that would require proper security… that you would take the time to setup it up correctly. It’s not Apple’s fault that you don’t know how to do it correctly.

1. It is possible to lock your screen, not by the screensaver thing. All you have to do is engage fast user switching. This way, you only are able to get back into your account. Of course, it is possible to change the screensaver lock to only allow you, or a group, to unlock it, but it requires moving a file around and isn’t straightforward. I agree that this process should probably be easier and more obvious, but I think the main intention is to prevent the scenario that you walk away from your desk and a coworker swoops in and starts messing around with your stuff. It’s very different if it’s someone who has an administrative account on your computer. If they have one of those, there needs to be a level of trust that they won’t screw with your stuff. If not, then you both shouldn’t have an admin account in the first place, because there are other ways they could screw with you (like, changing your password and then logging in as you).

2. One thing you didn’t mention (or maybe you didn’t know) about administrator accounts in OS X is that it’s handled in the good Unix-style. Whether your account is an administrator or not, it is really just a standard account. If you allow administrator access to an account, that applies an attribute which gives the user access to sudo. This way, if some virus manages to get executed, it can’t harm anything outside of your data without first prompting you for your password. Yes, Vista has that UAC crap, but because it comes up so often, most people just click through it without really thinking about it

3. Microsoft’s patch Tuesday is a horrible idea. There have been cases where people wait until just after patch Tuesday to release their exploit, which gives it a full month to propagate before it is fixed. Microsoft has made exceptions to this rule, but only for the really bad exploits. Compare this to Linux maintainers or Apple, they release patches as soon as they’re ready.

4. I don’t see how Apple is any less willing to admit problems in their software than Microsoft is. When there’s a problem, they fix it. Apple pushes how well their software works, and rightly so because it does work very well. They don’t actively push that their software has problems, but neither does Microsoft really.

5. I don’t buy your comment suggesting that Apple always takes months to fix your problems (and therefore implying that Microsoft doesn’t). If you could show me a couple more specific examples of Apple taking that long to release a fix for an exploit found in the wild, then maybe I’d believe you. Actually, that specific article you cited shows me that Apple’s priorities lie with software that most people use. It is unfortunate that they didn’t patch that issue sooner, but so few people use OS X as a DNS server (and rightfully so, everyone should use Linux or *BSD and Bind). Apple realizes this, and prioritizes on the software that most of their customers use. If there were a critical exploit in Safari, I would definitely want Apple to focus on that instead of some problem in iWork. But OS X is Unix, I’m sure it’s possible to compile and run the latest Bind on it manually.

6. I haven’t seen that video you mentioned (if you could find it online somewhere, I’d like to see it though), but I can say that I don’t think borrowing the best ideas from other products is necessarily a bad thing. I mean, every window manager in Linux has had multiple desktops for years now, and I’m glad that Apple adopted it for spaces. I think back when Microsoft really was innovating, Apple took some of the good ideas, just as Microsoft is doing a little bit of that now in reverse. What I don’t like is when Microsoft stole the networking stack in one of the BSDs, shoved it into Windows 2000 and passed it off as their own.

7. I kind of have the same feeling about that last keynote as you did, he definitely was a little rude, but I’m willing to overlook it because he isn’t usually like that.